


The Witch's Curse

by DavidtheWriter (DavidtheTraveler)



Series: A Growing Bond [5]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Day 23: Witchcraft, Deceit Sanders (Mentioned) - Freeform, Giant/Tiny Content, HiddenDreamer67's October 2019 Giant/Tiny Prompts, Multi, Supernatural Elements, Unsympathetic Deceit Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 13:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21458503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavidtheTraveler/pseuds/DavidtheWriter
Summary: After being together for three years, Logan is finally ready to tell his boyfriends the true story of how he was cursed to grow.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil/Creativity | Roman/Logic | Logan/Morality | Patton
Series: A Growing Bond [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531604
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	The Witch's Curse

“You…what?”

“Really? Are you…are you sure, Lo-lo?”

“I mean, really, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, mi roca.”

“No, I want to do this. You deserve to know the truth.”

The three normal sized teens shared a glance with each other before looking back up at their giant boyfriend.

“It’s just, in all the years we’ve known you, you’ve never wanted to talk about it,” Virgil stated. “And I can understand not wanting to talk about it. It probably wasn’t a very…pleasant experience.”

“That’s why we’ve never asked,” Patton pointed out. “We haven’t even tried to ask your parents. We didn’t want to invade your privacy.”

“Even since we got together three years ago,” Roman continued, “we’ve been okay with letting you keep it a secret. I mean, sure, we’d really like to know why—what happened, but we’d never want you to feel like you had to tell us.”

“I know,” Logan replied, “and I have loved you three all the more for that. But we’re about to graduate, and I don’t know what the future holds for us. Granted, it seems my height has finally topped out at twenty-five feet, but only time will tell if that’s true or not. So I want you to know the truth, before anything else happens.

“I really am doing this because I want to, not because I feel like I have to.”

The three exchanged another round of glances. Finally, they each turned to Logan and nodded, settling themselves down on Logan’s makeshift bed in the abandoned hangar he called home. At their nods, Logan let out a breath and began his story.

“It all began the summer after I turned eight. I was already showing myself to be quite academically gifted, but I was also already rather…introverted, to the point where I had yet to make any real friends at my school. So my parents decided that it might benefit me to send me to a summer camp dedicated to both social activities and academic pursuits.

“There is a campsite on the western slopes of the Kentucky Appalachians that is host to an annual young scholars camp. My parents believed it would be both educational as well as socially constructive for me. The camp was set to run for two months of summer break. It was…disconcerting to me to be so far from my parents for so long. But if they believed it might do me good, I would simply have to oblige them and give it a try. I trusted my parents to know what was good for me.

“I only wish I hadn’t put so much trust in my fellow campers.”

The sudden dark turn took the others by surprise, but none of them dared to speak, lest they throw off Logan’s retelling. After a pause, he collected himself and resumed.

“The first few weeks were uneventful. I became cordial acquaintances with my cabin mates, and established a reasonable bond with most of the instructors and counselors. But even among the more academically inclined, I’m afraid to say there are still trouble makers.

“In this case, it was Jacob Rasmussen, one of the older attendees of the camp. He had built up a rather…intimidating reputation for himself over the years that he had attended it. Most knew better than to cross him, or even disagree with him, lest they become a target for his and his gang’s…shenanigans.

“Unfortunately, I was just young enough and arrogant enough not to realize that sooner.

“About halfway through the first month, the camp had scheduled a special night for stargazing for all the campers. As an avid fan of astronomy, I was most excited to partake, and managed to secure for myself a place near the chief instructor for the activity, hoping to absorb as much knowledge as I could from him. Jacob and his gang were very near the instructor as well. But we had had very little dealings with each other until this point, so I was not worried.

“As the lesson began, I readily supplied answers to the instructor’s questions as often and as quickly as I could. I did not know this at the time, but Jacob had always prided himself on the same thing. And to have someone several years his junior beating him out on astronomical information was infuriating. Still, there was little he could do with all of us on our backs looking up and required to stay still for the lesson.

“But then Jacob supplied an answer that was wrong, and I corrected him before the instructor could.”

Logan paused again, a sudden wave of regret passing over his features. The other three scooted closer to him, reaching out to touch his folded legs. He looked up at their touch, and offered a small smile before resuming.

“The two of us got into an argument, and in our anger we both got up to confront each other. We nearly came to blows over the argument. Fortunately, the instructor told us both off for our conduct, though not before also noting that I had been right and Jacob had been wrong.

“I was saved for the moment, but now Jacob had a face to place with the voice that had been upstaging him all night. And the very next morning, it began.

“It started small enough: unscrewed salt shaker caps, leaky glue bottles, booby trapped pens, basic things. But then it began to escalate. One night they locked me in the mess hall restroom. Another time they tied me up and left me in a canoe that they pushed out into the middle of the adjoining lake. They even tried sabotaging one of my chemistry experiments to make it blow up. I managed to stop it from exploding, but I still failed the assignment.

“I tried going to the administration, but none of them would believe me. There was no evidence tying him to the incidents, so it was a matter of my word against his. And while he had his gang to back him up, I had no real friends who were willing to come to my defense.

“Even all of that I could have dealt with. But what happened next…”

Logan shuddered and curled into himself slightly, crossing his arms.

Patton, seeing his discomfort, immediately climbed up into Logan’s lap to lean against him and rub his arm.

“It’s okay, Lo-lo. If you need to stop, then that’s okay.”

The other two followed him up, Virgil sitting in the crook of his elbow and placing his head over his heart, and Roman climbing all the way up onto his shoulder to lean against the side of his head and run his hands through what he could of his hair.

“No, it’s okay. I can do this.”

Patton frowned, but didn’t disagree as Logan took a deep breath to prepare for the next part of his story.

“On the day of the halfway point in the camp, a big hike had been planned to allow the campers to explore the surrounding forest. We were sorted into groups of six, though we were also allowed to pick our group members. I would have asked my cabin mates to group with them, as they were the only ones who I had made any sort of connection with, but they instead asked a boy from another cabin to be their sixth. When I went to inform the counselors of my lacking a group, they insisted that I had already been picked for one. And when they showed me my group listing, my heart sank.

“I had been picked to be in Jacob’s group.

“I tried to convince the counselors that such a grouping was quite unideal, but they refused to listen to me say such things about Jacob. I even attempted to ask to be let out of the activity, but they were adamant that all campers must participate in the hike. With no other options, I resigned myself to whatever torment Jacob and his gang had in store for me.

“We began the hike, and Jacob and his friends quickly made their way down the marked trails, dragging me along as they moved out of sight and earshot of the camp officials. Once far enough away, they insisted that we take one of the paths marked as too dangerous for public access. I tried to object, but they ignored my concerns.

“The forbidden path was much rougher and harder to walk along. It had clearly not been as used or maintained as the other trails. We very quickly became covered in small scratches and random forest debris from the brush.

“Then the path opened up into a sort of odd clearing, a large circle free of growth, only covered by a thick layer of leaves and twigs. Though the interior was clear, it was almost completely surrounded by unpassable forest growth, with only the path we’d come from and a steep slope downward as openings along its edges. It was here that Jacob decided to make his move.”

Logan paused again, and the other three renewed their efforts to comfort him. After a moment, he let out a sigh and continued.

“He and his fellows started pushing me around the clearing, threatening me to show the proper respect. I wish I could say that I held my tongue. But I still felt the need to get the last word in. He didn’t like that one bit, and kept pushing me around the clearing, threatening to punch me if I didn’t shut up. After one particular insult from me, he pushed me so hard that I stumbled back, right over the edge of the slope.”

The other three gasped, but didn’t dare interrupt him otherwise.

“I rolled down the hill for what felt like a much longer time, eventually ending up in a patch of forest so dense that there was barely any light, despite it being almost noon. After taking a few minutes to recover from my fall, and then a few more to use my emergency first aid kit to patch myself up where I’d been hurt, I started trying to find my way back to camp, or at least to a trail.

“But there was no sign of either in that dark patch of woods. I had a vague sense that the camp was to the east of my location, but it was hard to find where the sun was through the thick canopy. Eventually, I just picked a direction and started walking, figuring I’d eventually find something, even if it wasn’t camp, and even if it took me hours.

“To my surprise, it wasn’t more than fifteen minutes before I found something that I thought might be promising.

“It was a shack in the forest, and one that appeared to be in regular use. I couldn’t see any sign of electricity or telephone wires connecting the house, but whoever lived there could still know how to get to a nearby town, or even know how to get back to the camp. So I made my way toward it.

“As I got closer, though, it started to seem rather…off. At first I wasn’t sure why. But I as came up to the front porch, I realized that what was off about it was just how big it was.

“This cabin had been built with a size and proportions at least twice as big as a normal house. The door alone was taller than my cabin back at camp, meaning the door handle was almost too high for me to reach. But I still managed to open the door and get inside.

“The inside was just as massively proportioned. There were counters and tables and chairs built at such extreme sizes that only a giant could have properly used them. Of course, I knew that giants were impossible, since the human body was clearly not designed to grow to such extreme heights.”

The four of them shared a brief chuckle at the irony of Past Logan’s thoughts.

“I reasoned that it must have been some sort of dumb tourist attraction that was being built but wasn’t finished. Or perhaps it was an on-location set for some upcoming sci-fi/fantasy movie, and I would find a similar but differently proportioned cabin nearby. And there were plenty of other rational explanations my brain provided for why this place would exist like this.

“But they were all cast aside when I heard something approaching. Something…big.”

Logan paused again, but continued on his own after a moment.

“I didn’t even have time to react. Before I could, I heard it pause at seeing the open door before a massive man, easily four times my height, barged into the house, looking livid at the intrusion. He yelled at me about trespassing, and I made to explain my circumstances. But the sight of his face made me freeze as the words died on my lips.

“Half his face was covered with scales, like a snake. He must have realized what I was staring at, because he started yelling at me about coming to stare at the giant beast of the forest. I finally found my voice and tried to explain as I backed away from him, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept getting closer, yelling at me, swearing that he would make me pay for my judging eyes.

“Suddenly he lifted one of his hands, and a glowing light appeared in it. I was completely dumbfounded, paralyzed with confusion and fear. He said something in a language I couldn’t understand, then there was a blast of light, and then nothing.”

Logan paused, but not to assuage his own fear. He had felt the other three tensing as they leaned against him. And looking between Patton and Virgil, and feeling the wet spot on the side of his head, he knew they must have started crying.

Very gently, he adjusted his arms, until either of his hands was near enough to Patton and Virgil so that they could hold onto them for assurance. At the same time, he tilted his head slightly to push against Roman, returning some of the comforting pressure he’d been giving him throughout his telling.

After a few moments, his three boyfriends relaxed slightly at his reassuring touches, and he resumed once more.

“When I finally woke up, it was almost dark. But luckily I was back in the clearing where Jacob had confronted me. I dashed back down the path I’d come, finally coming to the fork with the main trail just as I began to hear one of the search parties looking for me.

“I was berated multiple times for failing to stay with my group, and there was talk of me being sent home early. Jacob of course insisted that I had wandered off on my own, and that they had come for help just as soon as they had noticed I was gone. I was still too traumatized to defend myself. But I think some of the counselors realized that I had not had a good experience while I was missing, and managed to convince the administrators to let me off with a warning instead of sending me home early.

“At first, I tried to convince myself that I must have just hit my head on a rock in that clearing and had dreamed the whole thing up while unconscious. After all, it made no sense. A giant in the woods, with half his face covered in scales, and able to produce some sort of…magical glow in his hand? It was ludicrous. Completely unbelievable.

“But then that night, I had a dream. Except that it felt almost too real to be a dream.

“It started out the same as my experience in the woods: the fall, the dark forest, the cabin, the giant, right up to the flash of light. But this time, I didn’t lose consciousness at the flash. My body froze up, and my mind felt like it had been cleared of conscious thought. Then the giant started looking me over, a sadistic gleam in his eyes.

“’So, you like staring at freaks, do you?’ he said. ‘Well, let’s see how much you like being a freak.’

“And he went over to the fireplace, where there was a large cauldron hanging from a hook over the fire with some sort of thick liquid bubbling inside it. His hands lit up as he approached it, and with several different flashes, the bubbling intensified, to the point where I could see the liquid inside bubbling over and changing colors with each flash.

“Finally, with one particularly bright flash, a thick green smoke started billowing out of it. He then seemed to be directing it toward me, chanting in that same weird language from before, until it surrounded me and he started speaking in English again.

_“’You laugh and point at me, you wretch,_   
_But now you’ll see my power._   
_For watch as your own form will stretch_   
_‘Til you yourself do tower._

_“’No more can you think yourself better_   
_Than my strange self, my friend._   
_Instead you’ll be alone forever,_   
_and never will it end.’_

“And with a cackle, he forced all the smoke down my mouth into my lungs, and I choked so hard on it all that I woke myself up.

“Even then, I kept insisting that none of it had actually happened. But the next day, things started to…to change.”

Logan took one more pause, gearing himself up for the final stretch.

“The very next day, I found that my uniform was a little tight. I didn’t think much of it, so I just went about my business that day. I was steering clear of Jacob as much as I could, and he didn’t seem to be seeking me out, so I figured our business was done.

“The next day after that, my uniform felt a little tighter than it had been the day before. And it was starting to pinch in places. But it wasn’t enough to really make me concerned, so I brushed it off again.

“But by the day after that, it was so tight that it didn’t feel right. In fact, my shirt didn’t stretch down as far as it had before. Thinking back to my dream, I started to get scared. But I still refused to tell anyone about it.

“By day four, it was getting pretty obvious that something was going on. One of the instructors for my first class noticed how small my uniform was on me and had me go to the dressers to get a new set. They remeasured me, and found that I was a little over an inch and a half taller than I had been a month ago. They dismissed it as a combination of a botched first measurement and a summer growth spurt. But I was starting to wonder…

“Day five was even worse. The uniforms the dressers had given me had been a bit big, but now they fit perfectly. What’s more, I was now no longer the shortest in my cabin, and everyone was starting to notice. Rumors started spreading around the camp, and I did my best to avoid as many of the other kids as I could.

“Day six was when things took a really bad turn. My new uniform was now too short, and my instructor got onto me again about it. I tried to explain that I’d already gotten a new set, but he just wrote me up and sent me to an isolation zone as punishment. I spent that day crying, worrying about what was happening to me, and what was going to happen….

“Day seven was when someone finally noticed something was very wrong with me. When I didn’t show up to my first session, my cabin counselor came and found me hiding under my bunk. I cried into his shoulder, telling him I couldn’t go to it because my uniform was too small and I was afraid to get in trouble again. The counselor took pity on me and took me himself to the dressers.

“But when they saw me back not three days since they’d issued me a new set of uniforms, they got suspicious and measured me again. They were shocked to find I’d grown three inches in three days. They had me checked over by the camp nurse, but she couldn’t find anything wrong with me. So she asked me to stay overnight for observation.

“Day eight dawned, and the nurse found I’d grown an inch and a quarter overnight, making a total of six inches since the start of camp. They immediately called up a nearby hospital to admit me and informed my parents. But since they were at the far end of the country at a conference, it would be a few days before they could come and see me.

“The counselors tried to usher me out of camp quietly so as not to worry the other campers, but the rumors had reached a serious peak. So when one of the kids saw me being escorted to the camp exit with my stuff, everyone came out to watch and jeer me as I was taken away.”

Logan sniffed, trying to repress the tears at the memory. He couldn’t let himself start now, or he’d never finish.

“It took my parents three days to get to the local hospital where they were keeping me. By that time, I’d grown another four and a half inches. None of the doctors could find anything wrong with me. All of my vitals came out normal. My blood chemistry came back fine. Except for what they could see right before their eyes, there was nothing wrong.

“After my parents arrived and the doctors explained, we were referred to an expert a couple cities over. By the time we got in to see him a week later, I was a foot taller than I’d been in the hospital. Almost two feet taller than I’d been at the start of the summer. He couldn’t find anything wrong either. At this point, my parents were becoming rather distressed. I was too, to be honest. But there was one sign of hope.

“Since being taken away from camp, I’d been keeping my own daily track of my growth. And I’d found that while it had peaked at around day 15, it had started to taper off slightly. Graphing it out, it looked like it would peter off and stop around day 31. I only hoped I was right.

“After seeing a second specialist closer to home, and getting the same results back, my parents resigned themselves to my new reality. I was turning into a giant, and since there was no way to explain how or why, there was nothing to be done about it.

“My prediction turned out to be true, and my growth settled into a much slower rate by the end of that month. But I’d already grown to be six feet tall, and my growth had still become permanently accelerated. Until a few months ago, I kept growing at about two inches every month. It’s just recently started to look like it’s finally ending.”

Logan let out a long sigh, finally done with his tale. The other three took a few moments to digest what they’d been told. Finally, Patton spoke up.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Lo-lo. It must have been so hard for you to be singled out like that for something you couldn’t even control.”

“Yeah,” Roman chimed in, “I don’t know how you were able to keep yourself together on your own. I’d have probably completely given up if I didn’t have someone to rely on through all that.”

“You’ve been so brave,” Virgil continued. “And we’re so proud of you for holding on.”

“And we just want you to know that this doesn’t change anything between us,” Patton finished, beaming up at Logan.

Logan smiled back before turning to stare at the ground again.

“I’ve never told anyone about that hike, or what I encountered in that forest. I’ve always been afraid that I’d be dismissed or made fun of, or that people would try and force me to show them. And I really don’t want to go back there.”

Virgil tensed for a moment, an idea forming in his head. But after what Logan had just said, he wasn’t sure it was the best idea. Finally, his idea won out, and he spoke up.

“What if we did go back there?”

Logan turned to look at him in shock. “Why? What good would going back there do?”

“Logan, I know you don’t want to go back there. But what if there’s something there to…to change you back? What if we go there and find some way to make you…normal?”

Logan froze. He’d never considered that possibility. Granted, as far as he knew, none of them could perform that strange sort of magic that the giant snake-faced witch had used on him. But maybe there would be something there to point him in the right direction. The idea that he had a chance to be normal, to hug his boyfriends without fear of crushing them, to fit in his parents’ house for a family meal, to just be another ordinary young man for once…

“I could be normal,” he finally whispered.

“Now, hold on,” Patton interjected, a frown on his face. “First off, how would we even get there? That camp is hundreds of miles away from here, and it would take some serious work to get Logan there without too much trouble.

“Second, what if that giant witch is still there? What would we do about him?

“And third, are we sure that we should make Logan become normal? I mean, just because he’s not the same as everyone else doesn’t mean we should try to change him.”

Virgil hesitated. He’d been about to address Patton’s concerns when his third statement hit him. It was true. Just because they could possibly shrink Logan down to normal didn’t mean they had a right to decide that for him. He let out a sigh.

“You’re right, Patton. I shouldn’t have just assumed Logan would want to do that. I’m sorry.”

Patton nodded before turning to look up at Logan. After a moment, he spoke up.

“I think I do. I think I do want to try it. I mean, I know you guys will be here for me no matter what. But if there’s a chance for me to be a normal size, even for just a little bit, I’d want to give it a try. I’m willing to take that chance.”

Patton frowned, but then nodded. “If that’s what you really want, then we’ll make it happen.”

Logan smiled, and reached up to grab Roman before wrapping all three of them in a warm hug against his chest. He was feeling lighter than he had in a long time. Because for once in his life he finally had a chance to be normal.

But even if it didn’t work, it would still be worth it to try. Especially with his three loves standing beside him every step of the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [HiddenDreamer67](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenDreamer67/pseuds/HiddenDreamer67)'s [October 2019 Giant/Tiny Prompts](https://davidthetraveler.tumblr.com/post/188288684473/arc852-hiddendreamer67-yup-i-made-a-prompt).
> 
> Thank you for reading. Feel free to leave a kudo or comment, or even come over and talk to me on [Tumblr](https://davidthetraveler.tumblr.com).


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